Building on that theme, it's been a strategic advantage in terms of the location of the port. At MINExpo in Las Vegas, one of the largest mining conferences on the planet—some 50,000 people attended that event—when I articulated the positioning, that one can actually use seaway-driven goods, incoming goods that can be brought to the centre of a continent, that blew a lot of people away. Not to belabour the fact with New Gold, but we see other operations bringing in mine and mill equipment from Europe. Five to six different locations within Europe bring in that equipment. Four hours later, that can be on site.
One of our impediments—and this may be a broader transportation issue—is that we don't have a full port for handling containers. That particular piece is a bit of an impediment. Winnipeg and Toronto have to come into play on that in moving containers back to Thunder Bay and backhauling. That's not a very efficient way of moving goods. That's something we want to see improved with respect to providing those opportunities in terms of brainstorming a piece around that particular attribute. In general, I guess, regarding our northern transportation network, as one of the least-developed provinces in Canada, we do have challenges around general transportation in the north.
On logistics, we see grain. We've been fantastic the last four years on grain shipments east. With respect to incoming goods, the mining equipment may be an exception, or turbine parts, or the opportunity for engaging the potash, uranium, and oil and gas sectors. That's been very good, but a lot of goods also end up going to Chicago and to other locales in the Lake Michigan area. They come empty to Thunder Bay and backhaul with grain. If efficiencies around that can be created on the seaway, I think that would also be a great attribute if we could really explore that a bit more.